Even if the police caught the lowlife that did this, I doubt they would have received a sensible punishment. You regularly see stories about people who commit these crimes 10 or more times with no custodial sentence being applied. I suffered a break in recently and as there is no CCTV, the police have done nothing other than give me a crime number. No follow up despite promising to call me.
The problem with CCTV is that you need a high quality system to provide shots that will stand up to court scrutiny. Does the footage prove that X perpetrated the crime ?
My village of about 500 homes has endured about 10 break-ins in the past fortnight. It is like the sad case of the OP, the damage suffered by the victim is grossly disproportionate to the modest financial gain made by the perpetrator. Heating oil is being stolen too (typically by placing a red hot tap into the side wall of a plastic tank) even fuel from petrol tanks, some of which are being drilled.
It seems as a society we simply do not have the police resources or prison resources to deal with petty crime like this anymore. Massive prison population already. Police response times hopeless in rural areas like mine. So often we read the justification for police cautions is a lack of resources
So, why in our society is there not even a hint of a discussion about corporal punishment - like in Singapore (rattan cane) ? I do not mean killing folk (capital punishment) or chopping off body parts (Saudis).
No one even talks about this alternative which I do find a little surprising, especially given the feeling of helplessness that my neighbours for example are feeling right now.
Rattan caning is cheap, society has the resources to administer this. Quite frankly the current status quo of slow police responses, and in the unlikely event folk do get prosecuted, repeat offenders receiving cautions, is not protecting communities like mine
I would rather not even consider rattan caning as an option. But equally I would rather not consider embarking on wars. But there are times when negotiations (police cautions), economic sanctions (fines) are deemed inadequate so physical wars follow.